Elio Bucky is an interdisciplinary artist devoted to music for the voice. He is an opera stage director, baritone, and composer. He is currently pursuing a master’s degree in Opera Directing at the Butler Opera Center. This season at BOC, he will be directing opera scenes, assistant directing Proving Up and Les contes d’Hoffmann, and serving as the production stage manager for the Song Reimagined recital.  Elio’s affinity for vocal music began as a member of the San Francisco Boys Chorus, with whom he sang onstage as a children’s chorister at the San Francisco Opera, on international tours, and at the first Presidential Inauguration of Barack Obama.  His love of storytelling and the power of the voice has led to increasing engagements as a stage director, with a particular interest in new works and reimagined presentations of standard repertoire. In Summer 2022, he assistant directed Das Rheingold and Carmen at the Miami Music Festival and the world premiere of Michael Ching’s Alice & Anna at the Savannah VOICE Festival. Other credits include directing the Chicago premiere of Melissa Dunphy’s The Gonzales Cantata in a double bill with Gilbert & Sullivan’s Trial by Jury. He was the assistant director of the Chicago premiere of David T. Little’s Dog Days and Massenet’s Cendrillon in Miami.   He has been seen on stage in recent seasons as Marcello (La Bohème), Dr. Falke (Die Fledermaus), Jonathan (If I Were You), El Gallo (The Fantasticks), Dulcamara (L’elisir d’amore), Starveling (A Midsummer Night’s Dream), and Somarone (Béatrice et Bénédict). While at Northwestern, he sang with the Bienen Contemporary/Early Vocal Ensemble under the direction of Donald Nally.  As a composer, his choral works have been performed by renowned vocal ensembles Chanticleer and Madison Choral Project. In 2015, Elio became the youngest winner of the Chanticleer Student Composer Competition for his composition Shalom!, which received its world premiere by Chanticleer and over 200 high schoolers from around the country at Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco, CA. Recent projects include three yeats songs, a song cycle written for and commissioned by San Francisco-based singer Elliot Franks, and we cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself, a socially-distanced choral piece for Northwestern University Choirs’s Cor-tet Songbook. His compositions are self-published by Ampersand Press (ASCAP).  Elio holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in voice and opera performance from the Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University. As an undergraduate, he simultaneously completed a Bachelor of Music in Voice and Opera Performance, a Bachelor of Science in Communication Studies, the Integrated Marketing Communications Certificate, and graduated magna cum laude with departmental honors in both fields. He spent three summers learning and performing at the Chautauqua Institution.